foolishly. I tell you the house is haunted. Regularly on
Christmas Eve the Blue Chamber [they called the room next to the
nursery the 'blue chamber,' at my uncle's, most of the toilet
service being of that shade] is haunted by the ghost of a sinful
man--a man who once killed a Christmas wait with a lump of coal."

"How did he do it?" asked Mr. Coombes, with eager anxiousness.
"Was it difficult?"

"I do not know how he did it," replied my uncle; "he did not
explain the process. The wait had taken up a position just inside
the front gate, and was singing a ballad. It is presumed that,
when he opened his mouth for B flat, the lump of coal was thrown by
the sinful man from one of the windows, and that it went down the
wait's throat and choked him."

"You want to be a good shot, but it is certainly worth trying,"
murmured Mr. Coombes thoughtfully.

"But that was not his only crime, alas!" added my uncle. "Prior to
that he had killed a solo cornet-player."

"No! Is that really a fact?" exclaimed Mr. Coombes.

"Of course it's a fact," answered my uncle testily; "at all events,
as much a fact as you can expect to get in a case of this sort.

"How very captious you are this evening. The circumstantial
evidence was overwhelming. The poor fellow, the cornet-player, had
been in the neighbourhood barely a month. Old Mr. Bishop, who kept